The Rodriguez family has been serving traditional Mexican food to the public for three generations, but this generation is starting a new brand with a new flavor.

Siblings Mario Rodriguez, Edelmiro Rodriguez Jr. and Iddie DeLeon held the grand opening of Maria Mia Mexican Bistro on June 25. Their great-grandmother, Maura Chapa Rodriguez, was the mother of 12 children, six of whom opened restaurants or worked as chefs. One of those children, the great-aunt of Mario, Edelmiro and Iddie, was Ninfa Rodriguez Laurenzo, who opened the original Ninfa's restaurant in Houston. Other restaurants were El Patio in Harlingen, El Jardine in Kingsville and Consuelo's in San Antonio and Tampa.

This tradition passed through each generation, including Edelmiro, who opened restaurants in College Station and Waco, and continues with the proprietors of Maria Mia.

Q: What kind of influence did your family have on you?﻿﻿

Mario Rodriguez: When we were little, our grandmother would always have lunch for us whenever we'd come over. Or we'd be staying there; we'd have to go get tortillas.

Q: How did having those family members inspire you to open your own restaurant?

MR: It wasn't really the inspiration for opening the restaurant. We've been in other businesses in the past. ... We opened restaurants because the opportunity just came to us.

Q: So how did Maria Mia come about?

MR: That's my mama. Her name is Maria.

ER: Maria de Lurdez was her name. We were thinking about using Maria Lourdes, but that doesn't roll right off your tongue. We just threw stuff around and then we came up with Maria Mia ... and it just kind of stuck.

Q: And why did you decide to name it after her?

MR: That's our mother. She raised us. She fed us all our life. She's a great cook herself.

ER: And there were seven of us that she cooked for.

Q: How do you think this is different from some of the other restaurants you've had?

MR: Mexican food is special to us, but it's not all that much different than what we're used to doing. ... We changed the way we do things in our kitchen.

ER: We do everything fresh. We do everything daily.

MR: We have a lady in the back that rolls tortillas out.

ER: There are thousands of tortillas that could go out on any given day.

MR: To me, they care about what they're doing back there, and they want it to be right.

Q: How would you describe the atmosphere you have in the restaurant?

MR: I want people to think it's fun, festive. ... It's colorful, we have TVs for the bar. We want to appeal to everybody. Families, parties, corporate parties.

Q: What are some other ways you tried to make this inviting and festive?

MR: The music's fun to me. We keep it a little bit loud. Our bar is pretty festive.

Q: What do you think are some of your best items on the menu?

ER: We'd like to think all of our items are good. That's really the way we see it. Every item is good here.

MR: Our fajitas are good. We have traditional stuff like carnitas.

ER: The fajitas we do as our other family members did.

Q: So what's next for you guys?

ER: Let's get a year under our belt here on the river. ... After we get a year under our belt, maybe we'll expand or something.

MR: We just have to let people know who we are right now. This is a brand-new brand, and it's going to take a little bit from what we're seeing. The river's a little different. We noticed when the river's empty, it's empty. ... We want to not only be for the river, though. We want to appeal to the people of San Antonio. We try to buy things locally, from the beers we have to the wines that we serve.